A TENDERFOOT AT TOMBSTONE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4755, 27 July 1883, Page 4

A TENDERFOOT AT TOMBSTONE.

♦ Some time ago a flash young man from an eastern college arrived at Tombstone, Arizona, and registered his name at the prinoipal hotel. A socially inclined person in a blue shirt and wide rimmed hat, who ohanoed to be in the effioo, good-naturedly answered every question and volunteered a vast amount of interesting information about Arizona in general and Tombstone in particular. "Do you see them hills ?" asked the Tombstoner, pointing through one of the office windows. " Well, them hills is chock full of pay dirt." The jourg man from the east looked shockod. ."My dear sir," he said, proudly, but kindly, " you should say thoie hills are— not •them hills is! 1 " The Tombstoner was Bilent for a moment* He looked the young man from the east critically over as if ho was estimating the size of coffin he would wear. Then drawing out an ivory-stocked eeven-ehooter of elaborate style and fluish, he eaid in a soft, mild, mufaical tone of voice thai; sounded like a wild- wood brook coursing o'er its pebble bed: "My gentle unsalted tenderfoot from the land of the rising sun, this here's a pint that you and me disagrees on, and we might aj well have it settled right now. I haven't looked in a grammar lately, bat I say " them hills is " is correct, and I'm going to stand by that opinion while I've got a shot left. I'D give you just three minutes to think calmly over the subject, for you probably spoke in haste the first time, and then I'll hear your decision." The young man from the east looked down tho delioately chased barrel of the revolver into the placid depths of the eye of the Tomb* stoner, and began to feel that many points in grammar are uncertain and liable to grow more so. Then he thought of the coroner's inquest and of thb verdict, "Came to his death by standing in front of Colorado Tom's 7-ahooter," and of the long pine box going east by express with 96d0l oharges on it, and before half the three minutes was up he was ready to acknowledge his error. "Since he had thought it over calmly," he uaid, " ho believed 'them hills is' right. He had rpoken on the spur of the moment," he added, " and begged a thousand pardons for his presumptuous effort to substitute bad grammar for good." The Tombetoner forgave him freely, and, grasping his hand, said : " I know'd you'd say you was wrong after you thought a moment. I admire a man who gives right in without arguing when he knows he's wrong. Come along and irrigate." And they irrigated.